Kevin Windham's Retirement Tribute

Just shy of his 35th birthday and three races into his 19th year of pro competition, racing great Kevin Windham is calling it a career. For 13 of those seasons he raced aboard Hondas. During this incredible career-long span, KW lined up at the starting line for Supercross finals 207 times—including an unmatched run of 102 consecutive starts. His total number of starts stands second only to his GEICO Honda team manager, Mike LaRocco.

Along the way, K-Dub made a very successful transition from the two-stroke era to four-stroke race bikes to amass a huge collection of wins and podium finishes: two 125 Supercross West titles plus seven runner-up championship finishes in various classes of Motocross and Supercross competition. His most recent victories were two back-to-back Supercross wins in 2010. However, after contesting the first two races of the 2013 SX season Windham knew it was time to step off the bike.

“I would love nothing more than to ride forever, and the choice to retire was going to be hard no matter when I did it,” he said. “To the fans of Supercross, this might seem to be a hasty decision, but I've been talking to a lot of people for a lot of months. I thought I would be able to come into the season and ride myself out of that funk and that mental hurdle I was having to overcome. With every passing lap whether it be it at the test track, my home track, or the stadium it became more and more difficult to ride with the clarity I needed to be safe, fast, and successful.”

A huge favorite among race fans, Kevin was renown for his tenacious racing, thrilling style and his outgoing off-track personality. He always made spending time with his admirers a priority at the races, and he said numerous times that he could hear the roar of the crowd during races, and that he fed off that energy from the crowd. The fans of Supercross have been amazing to me," he said. "Those trophies aren't made of anything, and they'll just sit there and collect dust. When you have people who come up and share their favorite moments that you gave them, it's a huge part of why I stuck around as long as I did. It means something to them, and in turn those memories mean something to me.

"When I was 16 years old, I felt like I was losing my weekends because of racing. It didn't take me long to realize that my weekends were already being spent with my family—my racing family. We'll find that next chapter, and I don't think it will be too far away from where I'm at right now."

As a tribute to Kevin and his amazing career, we bring you here a collection of some of our favorite KW photos from years past.